I hung it inside my bedroom closet.
Not because I was still waiting.
Because I finally wasn’t.
Later, Daniel and I sat together on the porch as the sun lowered behind the trees.
His fingers closed around mine.
“Any regrets?” he asked.
I thought about the girl I had been, the sister who lied, and the man beside me who had spent decades trying to come home.
“Only the years,” I said.
“Never the promise.”
Daniel smiled.
It was older now, just like mine.
But somehow it was still the same smile I had memorized when we were fifteen.
For fifty-five years, other people had controlled the truth.
Now the truth belonged to us.
And whatever time remained was finally ours.
